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This issue brief was updated in October 2017 to add the size of the proposed protected area.

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) sit about 4,000 kilometres north of Antarctica
and 2,700 kilometres east of South America in the South Atlantic Ocean. In 2012, the United Kingdom
established a sustainable use marine protected area (MPA) around these largely uninhabited islands to
manage the local fishery and protect the globally significant wildlife.

As the government of SGSSI begins a review of the effectiveness of the MPA, the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project calls for the protection around the South Sandwich Islands to be reclassified to create a fully protected marine sanctuary. At over 500,000 square kilometres, this is an area of ocean more than twice the size of the UK. With all extractive activities prohibited, this sanctuary would serve as an important zone for scientific monitoring and assessment.

The current MPA encompasses 1.07 million square kilometres of the SGSSI exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
However, just 2 percent of these waters are fully protected from extraction of resources such as fish. The
MPA review will conclude in 2018.

The South Sandwich Islands are near pristine and are home to some of the world’s most significant wildlife
populations, but the archipelago’s environment faces an uncertain future largely because of a changing
climate. Currently, fishing is limited around the South Sandwich Islands and accounts for less than 5 percent
of revenues for the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (GSGSSI).

Full protection would safeguard the marine environment before climate and other threats take their toll. This
status would also support critical scientific analysis of the impact of climate changes in these waters, as well
as in the wider Southern Ocean region that stretches to Antarctica.

Reclassification of the South Sandwich Islands as a fully protected sanctuary would affirm the UK’s standing
as a global leader in ocean conservation. Taking such an action in the near future would allow for
the MPA review to focus on the waters around South Georgia, where complex interactions among climate
concerns, tourism, fishing, and invasive species require in-depth analyses to inform management decisions.

The case for full protection of the South Sandwich Islands

Today, most fishing in the waters of SGSSI takes place near South Georgia, a reality that highlights the
opportunity to enhance protection around the South Sandwich Islands. The SGSSI government has launched a review, slated to be completed in 2018, to determine whether the MPA is meeting
its overarching objectives: to protect the area’s globally significant biodiversity and ecosystems from harmful
pressures such as fishing, tourism, invasive species, and climate change.1

Globally significant wildlife

The South Sandwich Islands are a global biological hotspot for threatened penguins and other seabirds.
The islands host nearly half of the world’s chinstrap penguin population (1.3 million breeding pairs),
approximately 95,000 breeding pairs of macaroni penguins, more than a 100,000 breeding pairs of Adélie
penguins, and several thousand breeding pairs of gentoo penguins. Additionally, 4 percent of the world’s
southern giant petrels breed on these islands.2 In addition, there is evidence that the South Sandwich Islands
have not experienced the significant declines reported for some penguin species on South Georgia, in the
South Orkney Islands, and along the western Antarctic Peninsula.3 The archipelago is the only arc of active volcanoes in the Southern Ocean and its waters contain unique deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems; seamounts; and the South Sandwich Trench, which is 8 kilometres deep.

Still, scientists have very limited knowledge about the South Sandwich Islands, especially with respect to bird
species, deep-sea benthic and pelagic ecosystems, and the functional ecology of krill, a keystone species for
the region. What is certain is that the ecosystem is one of a kind and globally significant. To preserve it, full
protection from the impact of extractive activities such as fishing is essential.

Grey-headed albatross near the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

Its light coloring caused by a genetic mutation, this leucistic chinstrap penguin gathers with other chinstraps on Saunders
Island in the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

A humpback whale off the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

Near pristine

There has been little attempt to explore and exploit the South Sandwich Islands for natural resources in
comparison with the neighbouring waters of South Georgia Island, which saw both the boom and bust of the
whaling and seal fur industries in the early 20th century. Among the factors that have contributed to this
status are the lack of a natural harbour, rough seas, high levels of ice, and volcanic activity. Only in recent
years has the local government permitted exploratory fishing for toothfish in these waters.

Fishermen now operate in the waters of the South Sandwich Islands for approximately one month each year,
generating less than 5 percent of total revenues for the local government, which equates to about £150,000
annually.4 The fishery could be expanded, but the limited scientific knowledge of the area and the potential
impact on the ecosystem should preclude this. Protecting the South Sandwich Islands marine environment
would be a cost-effective approach to safeguarding one of the few remaining near-pristine marine
environments on the planet.

A hydrothermal vent, known as a white smoker, in Kemp Caldera along the South Sandwich Islands arc.

Alex Rogers

An iceberg near Vindication Island, one of the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

Barometer for a changing climate in the Antarctic region

The South Sandwich Islands has the potential to become a scientific monitoring and assessment zone of
global importance and provide another opportunity for the UK to demonstrate leadership in protecting
ocean waters. The ecosystems and species of the archipelago face an uncertain future, in part because of
the regional impact of climate change, including freshwater runoff from melting glaciers in Antarctica, ocean
acidification, sea surface warming, and changes in sea-ice distribution. Scientists do not yet have a firm
understanding of the long-term effect of these changes on the biodiversity of the wider Antarctic region.
Recent studies, however, indicate that populations of krill, the main food of nearly all of the region’s predators,
are likely to be heavily impacted.5

Several factors make the South Sandwich Islands important for getting a better sense of what is driving
changes seen elsewhere in the Southern Ocean. By mid-winter in most years, sea ice cuts through these
islands. That means Zavodovski and Visokoi, the farthest north, are often ice-free year round, while that
is rarely the case for the southernmost islands. Reflecting this, scientists have determined that there is a
biogeographic boundary across the island chain: Antarctic species are found on one side and sub-Antarctic
species on the other.

Given their location bridging the Atlantic and Southern oceans, the South Sandwich Islands and the
surrounding waters represent a critical biological barometer of a changing climate. Appropriate monitoring
would provide invaluable information on the impact here, as well as in the broader region under the
jurisdiction of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). The
most effective measurement and monitoring require that the environment be fully protected.

Advances in enforcement technology

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing poses one of the biggest threats to ocean health and
global marine conservation efforts. Traditional monitoring, such as fishery protection vessels, especially in
remote areas such as the South Sandwich Islands, comes with prohibitive costs for those seeking to police
IUU fishing. However, in 2015, a partnership between the UK government’s Satellite Applications Catapult
and Pew led to the development of pioneering satellite monitoring capabilities that enable cost-effective
surveillance to be carried out remotely.6

The UK and other governments have engaged Satellite Applications Catapult’s business unit OceanMind
and the Oversea Ocean Monitor application to support fisheries monitoring and to interpret vessel activity in
protected areas. OceanMind also uses the technology to help retailers ensure that the products they sell are
responsibly sourced.

The state of the oceans

The ocean covers over 70 percent of the planet7 and plays an essential role in supporting life on Earth. Its
waters help regulate global chemistry and climate, are home to more than 2 million species, and provide food
for more than 4 billion people.8

Ocean waters produce over half of the oxygen we breathe9 and have absorbed over a quarter of all humanmade
carbon dioxide emitted since the Industrial Revolution.10 Over the same period, the ocean has absorbed
more than 90 percent of the excess heat resulting from human activities, providing a buffer against the full
impact of a changing climate on the land. But these changes are taking a toll on ocean health. Rising ocean
temperatures and increased acidity are already affecting the distribution and abundance of marine life
and ecosystems.11 In addition, overfishing, marine pollution, and other human impacts are reducing critical
ecosystem benefits and harming ocean health.

Chinstrap penguins—along with an Adélie penguin—swim off Candlemas Island in the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

A brown skua peers into a camera on Saunders Island in the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

Large, fully protected MPAs are a key tool for addressing these challenges, just as national parks protect
habitat and species on land. Marine reserves safeguard ocean areas from large-scale industrial fishing,
extraction of natural resources, and other destructive activities. The MPAs that bring the greatest
conservation benefits share certain features: They are large, well-enforced, isolated, old, and highly protected
from extractive activities.12

Without commercial fishing and other extractive activities, MPAs enhance the biological processes that
underpin marine species adaptation and resilience, and they increase the chance that the ecosystem can cope
with stresses such as climate change, pollution, and overfishing. To date, however, less than 2 percent of the
world’s ocean has been fully protected. Leading scientists recommend that be increased to at least 30 percent.13

UK leadership

Over the last decade, the UK has led the world in its commitment to establish large-scale, fully protected
marine protected areas. Under current plans, by 2020 the UK will have protected—to varying degrees of conservation value—about
4 million square kilometres of ocean (an area greater than the landmass of India) across six sites: British
Indian Ocean Territory, Pitcairn, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena, and South Georgia and the South
Sandwich Islands. In making these commitments, it has partnered with the communities and governments
of its overseas territories as well as leading foundations and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) such as
The Pew Trusts, the Bertarelli Foundation, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to support marine
protection.

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands includes two geographically and geologically distinct groups
of remote and inhospitable islands. The South Georgia group includes one large island and some minor
ones and sits about 4,000 kilometres north of Antarctica and 2,700 kilometres east of South America. The South Sandwich Islands are an arc of 11 small
volcanic islands spread over 385 kilometres to the east of South Georgia. Eight of the volcanic cones have
been active in the past century.

East of the South Sandwich Islands, the East Scotia Ridge is home to the first deep-sea hydrothermal vent
communities of organisms discovered in the Southern Ocean. Other hydrothermal vents have been found in
calderas off the islands. To the west, the South Sandwich Trench is one of the deepest points on the planet.
There are no permanent residents in the territory, although the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) operates two
research stations on South Georgia.

SGSSI is considered one of the most significant wildlife hotspots in the world—home to 95 percent of all
Antarctic fur seals, 54 percent of all southern elephant seals, and cetaceans such as southern right whales,
sei whales, fin whales, humpback whales, minke whales, blue whales, and sperm whales. As much as a
quarter of the world’s penguins live there, including the largest chinstrap colony on the planet, on the South
Sandwich Islands.14 These islands are critical to several species of albatross, such as the grey-headed, blackbrowed,
and wandering albatrosses.

The South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Areas Order came into force in February
2012. It includes most of the EEZ, though not the area south of 60°S. Commercial fisheries for krill, icefish,
and toothfish are permitted to operate, with some temporal and spatial closures to protect specific species
such as foraging chinstrap penguins. Still, just 20,000 square kilometres are now fully protected. The MPA review
provides an ideal opportunity for the government, working with the academic and NGO communities, to
explore whether existing fishing management provisions go far enough at a time of significant regional
environmental flux.

Chinstrap penguins congregate on an iceberg off Vindication Island in the South Sandwich Islands.

Jim Wilson

Conclusion

Given the near-pristine environment, globally significant wildlife, economic case, and opportunity to measure
climate impacts, the UK and local government should agree to reclassify the South Sandwich Islands as a
fully protected marine sanctuary.

Full protection of the South Sandwich Islands would represent a best-practice approach by conserving the
marine environment before negative impacts are felt, in accordance with the precautionary principle and the
standards of ecosystem-based management. The UK adopted this approach when considering the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve.

Reclassification of the MPA surrounding the South Sandwich Islands would reaffirm the UK’s standing as a
global leader in ocean conservation.

On an expedition to South Georgia Island, a member of The Pew Charitable Trusts&rsquo; staff explored the natural and cultural history of this remote, rugged place&mdash;home to one of the highest concentrations of wildlife on Earth. Three blog posts chronicle his journey and observations.

In recent years, leading marine scientists have said that protecting large areas of the sea as oceanic reserves carries the added benefit of helping ocean life weather the impacts of climate change. Support for that claim was spread across numerous disparate studies&mdash;until now.

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The past two years have been pivotal for the conservation of our oceans. Since 2015, more of the ocean has been set aside for protection than during any other period in history. In the past six months alone, governments around the world have committed to protecting nearly 3.8 million square kilometers (1.47 million square miles) of ocean. These policy actions are based on the scientifically proven benefits marine reserves provide.